Tolling agency seeks loan extension

Published 12:59 am, Thursday, August 4, 2011

Because the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority lacks a revenue source to pay back a $500,000 loan to the city, the tolling authority is scheduled today to ask council members — for the second time — for at least one more year to settle the debt.

The loan was originally due Sept. 1, 2010, but the city agreed last year to extend the deadline one year.

When the loan was issued in 2005, RMA officials expected that tolls would be in place by the time it was due and the organization would have begun collecting revenue. The only agency in Bexar County with tolling authority, the RMA has not yet built any toll roads because several extensive environmental impact studies on U.S. 281 and Loop 1604 are not complete.

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“We have said that we have to have a project that's ready to be financed so that we can repay the loan,” said RMA Executive Director Terry Brechtel. “We have to have environmental clearance on our projects in order to get them prepared to be financially viable.”

Because the RMA has been unable to collect revenue, “the extension is an acknowledgement that they don't have those resources available,” said Assistant City Manager Sharon De La Garza.

As of Sept. 1, the RMA owes the city $591,744, including interest. The organization also borrowed $750,000 from Bexar County, but that loan has no payback date.

If council does not grant the extension, De La Garza said, the city will begin action to declare the RMA in default.

But dogged toll-road opponent Terri Hall said the city should deny the RMA's request and take the opportunity to dismantle the agency.

“They're just kicking the can down the road and keeping the RMA on life support by extending this loan,” said Hall, founder of the anti-toll group Texas Uniting for Reform and Freedom, or TURF. “Our view is to cut their losses and run.”

Brechtel has argued the tolls would be operating if TURF and another environmental group hadn't sued the RMA about the environmental clearances it already had, which required the more extensive studies.

If it hadn't been for the suit, “we would have a road opened in 2012 and we would have the city and county paid back,” she said.

The 1604 environmental impact study is expected to be completed by December 2012. The 281 EIS likely won't be finished until late 2013 or early 2014.

Currently, the RMA survives on a combination of grants, loans, federal stimulus monies and state funds that cover both its operational costs and the road projects it has undertaken since its 2003 inception, including a super street on 281, completed last year, and an interchange under construction that will eventually connect 281 and 1604.

The RMA took out the city and county loans as seed money for its original startup costs.

Councilman Ray Lopez, of District 6, said the city needs to sit down with the RMA over the coming year and figure out a practical, viable repayment solution.

“I'd rather not do that (extend the loan) but under the circumstances and recognizing the financial position the RMA is in, I don't think we have much of a choice,” Lopez said.

District 8 Councilman Reed Williams said officials need to question the continued existence of the RMA, but denying the loan extension won't solve that issue.

“So you say you don't extend a loan, what do you do? You haven't accomplished anything,” said Williams, who has opposed tolls in the past. “If the organization is accomplishing the mission it set out to do, that's really the question. That's not a question for tomorrow.”